a Knight in Your Queen's Court
by h0bbes
Summary: There is a line somewhere, there always is, and Helen Magnus makes it her job to walk along as if on a leisurely stroll. The pit in his stomach told him that it was about time that she make another jaunt across it.


"Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart." - Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

By the time Will and Declan are able to intimidate their way passed guards with bullets and steeled faces, There is already a team of people at work. They don't even have to share a look before they're stumbling and tripping to get out of the Jeep themselves, choking on the smoke and the earth and the flames. Workmen surround a van that seems to have marked the cusp of destruction and are prying with their jaws and hacksaws; Declan heads to them. Will only see's the body huddled near by, blanket on her shoulders. "Magnus!"

She hears her name and looks around, wide bewildered eyes blinded until they settle on him. "Will..." he doesn't hear her say the words but he can read her lips, which are cracked, he can see the faintest hint of blood in the corner of them. She stands, if you can call it that, and manages to get two whole steps before her knees give out and he runs to catch her- which just ends up in softening the fall again as he kneels next to her. "Kate-" she mumbles, reaching a hand out to the van. An ambulance has arrived finally, and with Declan's prudent supervision Kate is withdrawn- broken and bloody...her arm flops limply in a way it shouldn't before it is strapped to the stretcher like the rest of her. Declan looks at him and has the walkie at his lips faster than anything, no doubt radioing Henry to have their own people meet the paramedics- the last thing they need is a hostage situation, he doesn't know nearly enough spanish to get them out of that mess. There is frantic shouting ('Otro cuerpo! Otro cuerpo! Another body!') and Declan's head disappears again. Will grips Magnus tighter and silently sends a prayer to whomever's listening to bless Declan Macrae.

It takes 5 hours and too much arguing, but they get Kate and Biggie and Magnus medEvac'd to Asunción (only after some truly miraculous surgery from Argentina's finest to get Kate stabilized). Will and Declan sit outside the Sanctuary's medical facilities, pacing like worried parents. Magnus comes out first, hands wrapped in gauze, a set of steri-strips holding the cut just below her eye closed. She looks haunted, and Will stands to envelop her in a hug. She doesn't resist, and walks into the embrace gingerly. Will buries his face in the crook of Magnus' neck and takes a breath. She doesn't smell like herself, and if she does it's been washed off by the impersonal, scentless medical soap of the infirmary; washed away with the sweat and dirt and blood and grime. He doesn't realize that he'd teared up a little bit until there is a little dark patch on her collar, just under her ear. "Kate is...she's not...she's not well."

He doesn't think he's ever seen her this soft, or hurt. That's not to say he'd never seen her cry, she was human after all. But this was Helen Magnus, defenses down. "She's going to need some serious medical attention...if we're to get the shrapnel..."

"Magnus, you need to rest." Declan's words. He's standing behind Will, watching both of them like a hawk.

"I

need

to help Kate."

"Magnus..." Will says softly and she turns to him, all watery blue eyes and half-quashed hope. "Right now you can barely help yourself. Do you really think that that's what Kate needs right now?"

Magnus looks more like a scolded child than a two century old medical doctor. "...No."

"You need to rest." Declan politely demands.

"I will be fine in a couple of hours."

"Then in a couple of hours we can have this conversation again." Declan ends it by walking through the medical bay doors and leaving Magnus and Will to stand there in what has become a very awkward embrace. Will says nothing. He may be heir apparent, protege of the greatest doctor alive but Declan is a Head of House, which in the situation at hand has a lot more pull than the guy that Helen Magnus hit with her car and then offered a job.

Declan is the Head of House, yes, but Will is the one that eventually leads her to a guest room. Will is the one that sits her on the edge of the bed. "You'll sleep better if you're more comfortable." He says, eyeing the tattered shirt (because he suspects they wouldn't let her have the jacket) and the expensive pants with shrapnel ripped holes in them. She nods slowly. "Do you need help?"

"I am not an invalid, William." her voice is tinged with bitterness as she takes longer than she should to unbutton her blouse. Underneath she wears a bland chemise, that matches the bland gauze pads covering more scrapes and bruises. She gives him a look and stands; it takes her two tries to unbutton her pants, drawing the zipper down. Magnus sits again on the bed in tasteful-yet-modest underwear and bandages. "Happy now?" she asks and for just a second he thinks he sees a glimpse of her old self. "Like what you see?"

He was trying very very hard to do just the opposite of that actually, and she was making it much harder. "Magnus..." it's a warning to her and it is indeed just a glimpse. "Will you stay with me?" she says.

"Sure." Like she'd never ask, and he sits in the chair by the nightstand. With everything that has happened it should take her maybe ten minutes to fall asleep. Then he could call Henry, no doubt Declan has already. He couldn't imagine sitting back in Old City, having to rely on others to send updates on his boss, best friend...surrogate family. Will doesn't get to finish the thought.

"Will...come here." She's laying on her side, gingerly, staring at him. "Please."

He's up and by her side. She reaches out and grabs his hand tightly. "Stay with me." Will's ears burn and he gets it, looking over at the other side of the bed. Careful not to jostle her as he climbs up and over, Will lays on top of the covers, and she moves to grab his hand again, pulling it around to her side. It's an awkward angle and he doesn't quite know where to put his other arm so he ends up using to prop his head up and watch her, watch her while she absently plays with his fingers. He finds it fascinating, a side of her he'd never seen before. She traces up and down each one of his fingers, stopping to poke at the parchment paper skin between them. "I'm so tired of losing people close to me, Will." It's an honest confession, a little obvious; but coming from Magnus' it seems like a view inside her mind, and his heart swells that she trusts him with that sort of information. To everyone else she is the Great Helen Magnus. All armor and business skirts and 'tea please, cream, no sugar.' The woman laying here next to him now is just Magnus, the woman who was just nearly blown up, who's just faced death again and walked (half-limped, half-dragged but who was counting) away.

There was nothing he could say to comfort her, not really. Platitudes and half-smiling assurances where more his thing, a psychologist's tricks of the trade. "Me too." he answers quietly before he realizes what he's done. He feels like he's just dealt her an insult. Magnus turns quicker, quicker than Will expected and he flushes when they're suddenly nose to nose; he's resting on the awkward end of her pillow and she's staring at him with those wide blue eyes. They're softer when not lined with layers of kohl and the bruising shades she's chosen recently. More armor, he realizes two years too late. "I don't want to lose you."

It sounds weird coming from his mouth, but somehow, the most honest thing he can muster. "I think everything around me would collapse if you were gone." His revelation steels her gaze, he feels her tense as if she'd suddenly become a shell. Tekteran his mind rings in curious irony. She pouts her lip a little. He wants to kiss it. Instead he feels her hand on his chest. "I need to sleep." is all she says and just like that it's gone. "I'm sorry."

Not as sorry as he is. He backs away just enough and watches as her eyes give up the losing battle, breathing evening out to slow and comfortable rate. Will feels...conflicted, and is perfectly fine with just laying there and watching her. Only, it's not fine and he wants to do nothing but get up and walk anywhere but there. Instead he lays there, nursing that itchy-leg feeling, the desire to just get up and run away. It's hours, or it feels like it, and Declan enters with grim faced assuredness. Magnus is still dozing but Will catches his eye from over her gently rise-and-fall shoulder movements and in the half darkness convey everything with a furtive look. If anyone would understand his position, it would be Declan.

He nods and Will sits up, gently shaking Magnus. She jerks awake and sits straight up. He almost misses the wince. "What is it?"

"Kate." answers Declan. Magnus finds him with sleep blurred eyes, staring hard. "She's circling the drain."

"I'll be right there."

"Magnus-"

"No, Will." she doesn't even look at him, instead going for the band at her wrist. She pulls back her hair with quick efficiency and slides away from him, and together she and Declan leave him laying in the bed.

The two hour surgery turns into a 10 hour race against death, and Will sits behind a glass wall and watch Magnus do what she does best. Twice they broke out the crash cart and Will's heart catches in his throat at the prospect of just maybe losing Kate. Twice is all he can take. He's tired just watching, and there is Magnus, elbow deep in blood and still going. She's not perfect, he watches her step away for a moment or two, swaying slightly with eyes closed but then she's right back in there. The eleventh hour rolls around and Kate is stable and on the road to recovery, all gauze and stitches and silent prayers. Magnus repairs their relationship like she repairs her patients: with neat stitches hidden under layers of medical gauze. They fly back to old city in a silence cut by superficial conversation. They touch ground and all of the sudden they're off again.

Will doesn't see her for another 18 hours (succumbing to exhaustion and jet-lag; he misses his insomniac days) and when he does it's for a team meeting. Most of the scrapes are just angry red scratches across her brow and cheeks; they are the only marks that jar Magnus' perfect presentation of self. She smiles just a bit when she catches him staring. And to her everything is normal again. Lives lost, damages done, but in the end they're back home safe and sound; it's all that matters to her. He can't quite understand how the storybook morals fit to anyone else, but no one has the guts to doubt her. That leaves him, standing on unsure ground. So he watches. Watches as she checks on Kate's vitals every few hours, tucking stray hairs behind one ear. Watches the way she bites her lip against Declan's stern recommendations (they're still so very far from being out of the woods, and this small personal victory shouldn't be celebrated for too long), and she nods slightly with a soft 'Thank you'. He watches the light in her eyes as Henry babbles to her about his new idea, so ecstatic at the possibilities she rests a hand on his shoulder to keep him-a grown man-from jumping up and down like a child.

There is a line somewhere, there always is, and Helen Magnus makes it her job to walk along as if on a leisurely stroll. The pit in his stomach told him that it was about time that she make another jaunt across it.

Bolivia happens. Together the both of them cross and recross that line. And then it's Buenos Aires all over again but this time it's him that's laying in bed as the appraised patient, and the scratches on her face have rotated. He's no longer the protege, but partner (concubine rings bitterly in his ear, sounding nauseatingly like Adam Worth). His victory is short lived as she explains with sad eyes that she just can't tell him. He spends four years working for Helen Magnus with one demand, and when it boils down to it she up and decides that she just can't fucking tell him. Four years, he kicks miserably at the fresh sheets tucked just a little too tight as to trap him by the ankle. Of course, four years is pennies to the 113 she spent holed away only to look upon the world again and ache. He couldn't begin to understand, he knows this, and it gives him an ice cream headache trying to wrap his mind around it; it only leaves him in a bad mood. So much so he grouses when the Big Guy comes in to deliver dinner, and when Henry checks on him Will makes a complete ass of himself as he watches his friend leave with a sour look. The sun is setting again when Magnus returns to give him his next dose, and the warm glow gives her the slightest of blushes, a reddish tint to her hair as she closes the door behind her. She's changed again, into a starched suit jacket and a pair of intimidatingly tall heels, and he suddenly remembers the words business conference.

She wears her armor, peering in at him through the doorway with a cautious expression that is borderline worried. "Are you doing alright, William?" Just like that, Will is reduced to feeling like a child again, that guilt ridden association with authority figures using his full name. His frown is a deep line and she takes a step into his room, silver tray resting jutted against her hip. He was in trouble. Henry, he thinks with a defeated sigh. Tattle-tale.

Magnus twists her lips into a tight frown, turning away to prepare his next dose of nectar of the almighty gods. "Will." she says quietly, finally. He doesn't answer. He asks to be something bigger, something better in her eyes and she demotes him to child. That's fine. Child she'll get. "Not speaking will not make what you're avoiding evaporate. Arm, please." She doesn't wait for him, but gingerly encircles his wrist, pulling it to her as she slides onto the bed beside him. The alcohol swab is uncomfortably cold, shame on him for playing the difficult one; he wriggles a bit to resettle and just for a moment he catches a smirk. But it's gone just as quickly as it appeared and she pulls and moves to inject him again- "Magnus, wait."

She looks genuinely surprised, but heeds his request, thumb on the plunger. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry," Confusion crosses her face. "for everything." That's not true. He feels just bitter now. But he had felt sorry. He'd felt sorry as soon as he said it. Apologizing now was handing out false platitudes, sealing up a crack once everything had already leaked out. She takes it though. He sees it sink in. She considers it a moment. There is a small muscle that runs across her jaw and he is enraptured as it flexes and relaxes. She dips her head (to the left and away. Not lying, just avoiding his eyes), but she takes his apology (she always does). "May I?" she pulls at his arm again. "Oh. Yeah. Okay."

It still hurts. He hates needles; there is nothing remotely sexy or comfortable about them. But the pain is blessedly short, and Magnus is a good doctor (a damn good doctor) and she's pressed a cotton ball to the wound and folds his arm back. "All better." she smiles, twisting the empty syringe between perfectly manicured fingers. "Not really." he says.

"No." she agrees. But it is, just a little.

And he feels like he's both taken a leap forward, and slid back so much his ass will be permanently covered in splinters as soon as he leans in to kiss her. The angle's wrong, he gets more the corner of her mouth than her lips but it's close enough. She doesn't push him away, or slap him, or very much of anything but sit there frozen and lets Will feel like he's just committed emotional hara kiri. He sits back, red as a beet, waiting for something. Something would be better than the nothing she was sending his way right then, eyebrows hidden up under her fringe. He's done what he'd wanted to do since Buenos Aires and now he feels even more like a tool. "Um..." he starts. Shit. "I don't. I can't. I'm sorry. Again."

"Why?" it bubbles up, sounding half choked.

"I thought I was losing you there."

"So you kissed me."

"Yes." he doesn't understand his logic much either. He wants Buenos Aires back, he thinks sickly. That had been his chance. Not after they'd foxtrotted into the land of Not Okay and come back to Maybe Just Maybe.

Magnus gets up and returns to the tray leaving him wanting for the weight that had been pressed up against his leg only just previously. She sets down the syringe and presses her hands to her abdomen, smoothing over and over her suit jacket. Ironing her armor. She doesn't look at him. "Everything feels too small, Magnus. I was stupid and I thought I would be better off and I was wrong and...I'm sorry."

"You seem to be saying that quite a bit recently."

"Yeah." the cotton ball falls away as he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well you deserve it."

"Will." she finally looks at him again, eyes misty.

"I know you aren't the biggest advocate of sharing feelings, but one of us has to be the bleeding heart here." He manages a lopsided smile, patting the bed. "Sit back down."

He can't tell if she is going to run or simply tell him no. "Please."

Helen Magnus is a woman of many surprises, and Will frankly likes that about her (even if most of the time it drives him absolutely insane); but he doesn't know what to make of it when she silently complies, hands sliding under her skirt to tuck it as she sits close enough that they are touching, her hip to his thigh, but no more. "I think..." he starts, "...that this is the part where I tell you that I've loved you and I will always love you or something."

His levity wrestles a chuckle from her. "But you won't."

"I don't think that I could cover everything in just three words."

The smile that had been ghosting the corner of her lips died. "I'm not looking for love, Will."

"That's not what I'm trying to say, either."

"I'm sure whatever you have to say to me would be better said to Abby."

Magnus may be sitting with him, but she hasn't quite lay down her shield. She tosses Abby at him like a contingency plan, and when he thinks about it the knotted sense of guilt in his intestines tightens a little bit more. But that's Abby. And she's Magnus. And if he doesn't say what he wants-to-needs-to say to her right fucking now this isn't going to happen again. This is his last at bat, and Magnus throws up the wall, closes the gates, and cements herself in from this chapter of their lives and he's inconveniently forgotten where he put his pile driver. She's just as anxious as he is now, he's strung her along enough (and the world knows how much she enjoys that) and she's been patient, but now she's just fidgeting. "What are you trying to say, Will?" it's a prompt. Trying to pull the playing field back home. ("Ah, I've made you uncomfortable. Poor thing.") He's got this.

"It wouldn't make sense, though. I don't know Abby like I know you."

"That's not an answer, Will. You keep saying that you can't or that it wouldn't. Don't tell me what you cannot say and give me what you can."

"But-"

"Your best is all I ever wanted, Will."

He's pretty sure his smile looks more like a grimace to her at this point, but he can't help it. "And that's what it's always all about." she hesitates, ready to pull back. He says it without accusation, holding up his hand waving her closer. She just looks at him through narrowed eyes. He continues with his index finger. Magnus gives in, leaning in. He leans forward, too, close to her ear. "I gave you my set of days. I trust when those are up you'll make the end interesting."

The long silence that comes afterwards nearly kills him. Neither of them move from that position. Not until he feels her hand on his cheek, pulling him to her. She tilts his head, and presses her lips against his cheek, and again, letting out a broken sigh "Of course." she says and her chuckle is breathy, moving to kiss him again (corner of the mouth, a mirror to the one he'd stolen earlier) before she gingerly presses her lips against his. Her kiss is all skill, nothing like his laughable attempt- like a gentle guide as she demands entrance in a way that he sappishly feels is so like her it hurts. She's testing, he finds, pushing forward in a bold manner when she finds that he won't bend and break under her hand. They drift from gently somber to exploratory, and from there again to demanding. Somewhere in the back of his mind Will considers her actions a surprise as he'd always thought (fantasized) that she'd have some passive dominance that oozes in the light of day. The way she is now, half way backing into his lap is months (years, she's been gone years) of pent up loss and sorrow and things that he knows he wouldn't even begin to fathom.

She wriggles in his lap (oh god, oh god, if she was going to do that they were going to have a problem very soon) and he barely manages to realize she's trying to get out of her heels. Magnus makes a little frustrated noise that feels just- he grabs her by the waist and pulls, enough to reach them himself. His fingers are clumsy, and it takes two tries, but he undoes the little clasp, sliding the shoe off her foot. She's leering at him, quietly, waiting. He takes off the other one with less trouble, dropping the two of them to the floor with a dull thump. She wiggles her toes experimentally and it's distracting enough he doesn't notice until she's on him again, spattering kisses along his brow.

He tries living in the moment, because anything else would seem to surreal. Not that this isn't- he gets a mouthful of dark, flowery scented hair as she moves down his jawline, mindfully avoiding the yellowed bruise that takes up most of it. One of her hands rubs the other side, fascinated by the texture of three days of five o'clock shadows. Will has no idea where to quite put his hands other than everywhere, but takes initiative and starts with her shoulders. He tugs on the suit jacket until she gets it, sitting back with an exasperated whine, adjusting her shoulders herself, tugging the suit jacket off and unceremoniously shucking it off the bed. Someone was anxious (more of that pent up tension he suspects), because he doubted she of all people would be so cavalier with clothing that undoubtedly cost more than his own net worth. He still feels under dressed for this, though, and trapped underneath too many layers - bed layers, as she's seen fit to go ahead and straddle him (and wasn't that just like fantasy with a view) but had effectively left him in a predicament. "Magnus." he says, but she doesn't hear him, having moved down to that spot on his neck, and running her hands down the front of his t-shirt in just that way. "Magnus, hold on."

"What?" she sounds positively irked at his interruption before her wits return and her expression softens "Oh. Sorry."

"The covers."

"Right."

Her hands still and she looks down, and he doesn't have to worry about those covers any more, because she leans into him (oh god the closeness) and yanks. It's not as graceful or grand as she tries to make it, it's more awkward shifting and Magnus has pretty much just crushed his chest before she resituated, the covers a defeated lump at the end of the bed. It's a shock, the change in temperature and that's not going to help his case and-

"Oh." She looks at him with owl eyes, impossibly blue and somewhat at a loss.

"Yeah..." he says, profoundly. Neither of them he thinks quite thought about that.

"That's the point, William." she admonishes and moves her hand awkwardly to the zipper of her skirt. She tugs, just a little too hard and it catches. She swears before he swoops in to help, pushing the stiff fabric up so that it folds around her waist like a belt. She's wearing thigh high hose and (dear sweet merciful Christ) a pair of black lace panties. "Wow." he says but it's more of a croak and for some reason she finds that hilarious.

"You like them, I take it." she's teasing him now, swaying her hips side to side a bit before sitting down again and- Will makes the most undignified of noises then, which is just music to her ears because she does it again. "You're killing me here." he mutters, finding his hands gripping her hips tightly, afraid to let go and let her have free reign; she would kill him, he knew it. Magnus slides one hand up, running her thumb across his lip before leaning in to kiss it. "But what a way to go..."

"I'd rather not-" she stops, pouting out her lip just a little "Not-not yet."

"Are you absolutely positive?" Magnus looks like the devil with that smirk as she does it again, thrice for good measure and he starts to rethink those covers, the only thing separating that absolutely sinful heat being a pair of undergarments and his rapidly degrading self control.

"I need...I need a..." this is absolutely mortifying, she has him so wound up, he can hardly make sentences. Magnus shakes her head, stroking his chin as her touch drifts down, "No need. Nothing that you're thinking of would happen." it sounds terribly bitter and just a little bit sad but Will doesn't get to think about that because her hand is so firmly reminding him of a very different matter. She dips into his boxers and pulls him out, giving a couple experimental strokes. He can't help himself, hips bucking off the mattress, making her rise and fall sharply, and he regrets her still modest blouse. "Stop teasing." it's a plea.

"Fine." she grants him mercy, adjusting her panties and worries her lip as she sinks down, hands flying to his shoulders to balance herself. This time when she shifts her hips it's glorious and his hands ghost under her blouse to stroke at her abdomen, tracing ribs and the underside of her breast. He hits a spot and she lurches forward with a breathy "Christ your hands are cold" as she rests her forehead against his shoulder.

They didn't last long. Magnus burrowed her head into the spot where his neck and shoulder met, kissing him languidly just above the collar of his shirt. He rubbed his hands up and down her back, teasing the bra strap along her spine before moving down again to tug at her hips. They find a desperate rhythm, and between sharp demanding noises and the way she'd cant her hips when Will slowed, he couldn't take much more; she doesn't get noisy until his hand drifts out of her shirt and between the two of them, tugging the offending garment further away to rub two fingers against her.

He'd never taken her for much of the type to swear, but she comes and he hears 'Fuck' falling from her lips. She just sits there for a moment with him still inside, and he listens to her breathing patterns return to something that wasn't rushed or exerting. She rises up on her knees, reaching for the slender tissue box on the nightstand, silently wiping him down before thoughtfully tucking him back in. Magnus has yet to meet his eyes, and that starts to worry him. Her free hand, still on his shoulder, traces absent circles.

"I shouldn't have done that." she said, after a moment.

That threw him. That could mean so many things...Did she regret cleaning up after him? Or deciding to straddle her protege (friend-concubine-partner-whatever) and ride him like a prized stallion was the course to take? "I shouldn't have...I am sorry, Will." She separates herself from him quickly and completely, adjusting her panties before tugging down her skirt so that it once again rests at her knees. And as she sits as far away from him as she can, re-buckling her heels he feels her guilt rolling off in waves and seeping into him (AbbyAbbyAbbyAbbyABBY). He moves his feet to the ground, and moves to reach for her jacket when she stops him dead with a "Don't."

"Just lay back down. I'll go."

"Magnus-"

"Don't. Just- please. Don't say anything." She snatches the suit jacket up, swinging it up and over her shoulders to slide it on, deftly doing up the buttons again. There it is, the infallible armor; moat filled, gate up, walls risen to an even more impossible height.

And that makes him feel terrible. He isn't the one to blame (no, that's not true. He's a co-conspirator. Magnus played Dali Lama for a hundred and thirteen years. He'd only nearly died. That line was becoming too worn for use. He is just as much to blame as she is).

"I'll send someone with your treatment in a few hours." and just like that she has shut him out completely, hidden behind her stone cold professionalism that quashes all feelings of guilt and remorse. "Stay in bed. Or read. Someone will have to change the sheets." She sighs, and Will hears the waver that signals the verge of angry tears. "Goodbye, Will."

She walks away swiftly and sharply; he waits, listening, fists wrapped in the sheets.


End file.
